The Luthier – Janos Markus Barbarossa

Lutierul - Janos Markus-Barbarossa

Everyone likes music, but do we know what do we know about its basics?
There are several ingredients, aside from artists’ talent it stands the perfect instrument or the instrument and then the artists’ talent. The luthiers are the type of craftsmen that offer the musicians a part of their craftsmanship in order to create perfect sounds and to entertain the audience. They are specialized in building and repairing the musical instruments with strings and we can mention the violin, cello, contrabass, harp, lute etc.

The minute I read an article about mister Barbarossa I said to myself that I have to find out as many details as I can about him and his work. He is not just a luthier, he is also a painter, graphic artist, photographer, sculptor, writer, restorer of old objects and musician. He learned the secrets of the craft from some great masters and now he wants to share them with other passionate people. He is one of the 15 people in the world that can intermediate selling musical instrument for collections. He lives in Vienna and once a month in Cluj.

The documentary was filmed in Cluj at the end of May in 2012. We waited for 3 months during we couldn’t film any other episode. I was impatient and during this time I imagined possible video compositions and situations. I wanted to accomplish a complex documentary, better than the first ones that would inspire in many other ways.

The first thing that I noticed when I entered his workshop was the workspace or desk. I studied it looking at every detail. Every wall and each space from the workshop was filled with tools, instruments, materials, pictures and paintings. It was exactly as those moments when you think about something, you imagine it in a certain way or have some expectations and when you reach there it is exactly as you expected it to be. I had the impression that I was stepping into a place where not everybody has the privilege to enter, so I was thankful to mister Barbarossa.

The short time we had was not a problem because the order of the things and the atmosphere of the workshop were so inspiring for me that it led to creating different compositions than I had accomplished before.
I thank to mister Janos Markus-Barbarossa for the opportunity offered and for the words he said! On this ocassion I also thank to Emanuil Iova – photography assistant and to Tom Fahy for soundtrack.